Last week we finally got a nice enough day to clean out the chicken coop. This means we rake, shovel, and scrape out all the old hay, shavings, dirt, and whatever else is in there. In it’s place we disinfect ( in a way that doesn’t hurt the chickens) and while that is setting in we clean out and spray down the boxes and get anything we can out into the sun light and spray it off with the water hose. Once everything is as clean as we can get it we put down fresh hay and new shavings in the boxes.

Our girls always love scratching around in the new hay and seeing what they can find. Its like a kid on their birthday playing with the box. Its funny to hear their happy noises and see them explore. Even the dogs try to go in and check it out (if we would let them).We rearranged things some this season to give them more space inside incase they have to stay in with the winter weather.

Chase is always a good supervisor for chores that take a while. Baxter is happy to sit on the porch and sleep.

I’m glad we got this chore done and have the girls already for the winter. One chore down… many more to go 😉

Two of our Columbian Rock Crosses have started laying (but not the one pictured below)…

And maybe even one of my New Hampshire….

Their eggs have been so little and cute 🙂 No yokes in them at first, but now they are getting a little bigger so we’ll see when I crack open a bigger one…

It has been very interesting to see these chickens integrate into the old flock and find their place among the other ladies. Its also fun to hear the difference in their clucking and little noises from the other types of chickens we have. I sat outside the last couple of nights since its been cooler, and just watched and listened to them…. Loving our adventures in chicken land 🙂

So the baby girls had their first day out in wide open spaces yesterday. At first they stayed close to their chicken tractor…

But eventually they took off testing their wings and exploring…

At one point something must have scared them as the crowed back towards the fence…

But eventually they just had fun exploring, under hubbys and my close observation.

This is our third time letting a group of chicks out to explore and we learned it is best done when you have two or more people to help keep an eye on your chicks and to keep an eye out for predators as girls this size are still easy bait. You also have to watch out for the older chickens in your flock. If they want to the big ladies will pick on the younger birds. We haven’t had too much of a problem with this since the big ladies are used to the young chicks in the chicken tractor.

We usually let them out in the afternoon or early evening after hubby has gotten home so we can watch them together. They still spend the majority of the day in the chicken tractor. As they get older and bigger they will get more time out in the great outdoors “free”.

We don’t know how it happened and only can assume it may have happened when she jumped off her perch one morning. She has been hobbling around some, she is eating, and drinking so I’m not sure what we should do…. or if we should leave her alone to heal ? We can’t see anything wrong and when we press on her leg and the joint above she doesn’t peck at us or show pain, but who knows. Any ideas?

We broke down and got some more cuteness this year in the form of 10 new baby chicks…

We have been debating getting new birds, but since we lost a few more of our oldest chickens this year we decided it was time to get new ones… especially since our egg production is down. We got them when they were one day old and they are so tiny.

I forget every time how small they are. I know they have to fit in an egg… but serious small cuteness here…

Chase is beside himself wanting to play with this new flock of babies, but has been resisting and trying to sit patiently as hubby and I handle the baby’s and maintain their living area right now.

Baxter could care less… he has been though this so many times and is such a laid back pup, that once he smelled them and looked at them he was over it and was back in his chair. I love to check on the babies every day when I get home and just watch them.

I change out things in their box every few days and on their first change they got a mirror added… They seem to love the mirror and often are caught looking in the mirror or sleeping in front of it… It’s hilarious 😉

We ended up getting 5 New Hampshire chicks and 5 Columbian Rock Cross chicks. It’s nice to have babies in the house again and hear their little chirps 🙂

Being a chicken keeper is not as easy as it sounds. Like any animal there are daily decisions about care, feed, shelter, etc. Today dilemma was about clipping the new chickens flight feathers as they keep escaping their area and the concern is that our neighbors dogs or other wild animals will get them. As I said the other day, they are safer inside the area we fenced off for them where our dogs are then outside it. We have a large area fenced for them and our dogs to be.So today 4 more got out and so we clipped the one that couldn’t figure out how to get back in. Now clipping a chickens wing is something we have never done as we like for them to be able to get up on their perch, fly away from predators, etc… so this was a hard decision. Yet, it came down to the girls are safer in the fence then out of it. If the other’s keep jumping they will need to be clipped to at least this year.I was told and have read the flight feathers grow back and if that is so hopefully the girls will have figured out they can’t jump/fly over the fence by the time they grow back and not try. Fingers crossed… one can hope so we can let them keep their flight feather’s next year. 🙂

So I made up a gluten-free and dairy- free cookie (at least from the recipes I have ever seen I have made up a recipe) and I am pretty proud of it as it has won over every person who has tried it. No one could tell it was dairy and gluten-free. Now don’t get scared of the spice in the cookies, it is just noticeable enough for you to say… “what is in that cookie?” So here it is my debut of my…

Chocolate Chip Spice Cookie

You will need:

1/2 cup Shortening

3/4 cups light brown sugar

1/4 cup Truvia/Stevia sweetener (or any of your choice)

2 tbsp. almond milk

2 tbsp. vanilla

1 egg

1 3/4 cups gluten-free all-purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

3/4 tbsp. baking soda

3/4 tbsp. baking powder

3/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

3/4 bag dairy free chocolate chips

I used my food processor to mix all the ingredients with the bread blade and used a small bowel to mix the dry ingredients before adding them (see below). But mix with what you have 🙂

To make:

Preheat oven to 375* and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

In your food processor (or you can combine in a bowel and use a hand or other mixer) combine shortening, brown sugar, truvia, almond milk, and vanilla.

Blend until well mixed scraping sides if needed.

Add egg and cream into mixture.

Add in the pumpkin pie spice and combine scraping sides.

In a small bowel combine flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.

Add this dry mixture slowly into the food processor ( I add it in three sections) until combined.

Scrap sides before adding the dry mixture each time.

Once dry mixture is combined add in the chocolate chips

And combine.

Using a small ice cream scoop drop round scoops onto the baking sheets with a little space to spread out in between.

Bake for 8-10 minutes until they are slightly brown. Don’t overbake. Allow to cool on the pan for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

I keep my cookies in one of two cookie jars. This rooster one (below) or my chicken one…

It reminds hubby of his grandmother always having cookies in her cookie jar when he was growing up 🙂 Look inside…Enjoy with someone you love 🙂

The weather was perfect today 92* and there was a light breeze. Hubby and I moved some trees for the neighbor with our tractor. Then hubby changed the oil in the car while the one month old chicks got to go outside for the first time 🙂

We put up a little fence with a wire top so the hawks couldn’t get our babies.

At first they were a little hesitant and wouldn’t move. It was if they didn’t know what to do.

Then slowly they started to explore, peck at the ground, find things to play with like pinecones, and they were off…

They now LOVE the great outdoors 🙂

One of our big chickens that our neighbor has named Mrs. Marigold came to check out the new chicks…. She got closer….

And closer….

Until finally…

She checked them out…

They checked her out….

Then she lost interest and walked away to find some food…

That was it she just left the little chicks wondering who that big mama chicken was…

A couple of them got a special treat and under close supervision were allowed to explore the flower beds…

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